Ok, I have to admit that I did had a premonition this morning. There were a few good reports up and down the coast that fish wearing pajamas were swimming in the local surf. It felt right. The tide on the beach looked good with a .6 ft swell off a full moon. I set my alarm at 5:30am to take advantage of the first half hour of early light, maybe I get lucky? If it was going to happen it was going to be at low light. I was solo, no one out there except yours truly. Back at the parking lot, my friend Tony was jamming on his trumpet as the sun began to rise out over the eastern horizon, he could be heard from a distance. Being on the sand early in the morning always makes me happy. I made a few exploratory casts and decided to move. The water had some salad and I needed to find a cleaner stretch. As the sounds of Tony’s jazzy trumpet echoed across the distant sand, I made a long cast just behind the oncoming set of waves and on the third crank of the reel handle, it was hammered violently and came to a halt. At first thought I said maybe its a big halibut, but after the fish took off I realized it was not a halibut. The beauty of fishing the surf is always that unknown, that anticipation of what it might be? So I am hooked up as the sun is rising, listening to a live jazz soundtrack and it feeling like I’m in a Fellinni movie. After a quick battle the fish was slid onto the wet sand, photographed and released unharmed. What made it even more special was I landed this fish on my dad’s old fiberglass fenwick spinning rod! A classic! I miss fishing with him. Moral of this story is I rallied to fish even though the odds were never in my favor. Stripers are routinely caught up and down our coastline but actually targeting and catching them is built on perseverance, luck and good karma. I used the standard LuckyCraft 110 minnow, I usually customize them by replacing the factory trebles with red EagleClaw #4s and use only a front and rear hook, no middle hook. I used 15# Cortland braided line with a top shot of 15# Maxima mono line. Retrieve was a slow roll. Karma was good, and stoke was high! stay with it –Al Q
flies, sand & surf 